Donovan: Couldn't denounce e-mail I didn't see

Staten Island District Attorney Dan Donovan, the GOP candidate for attorney general, said he didn’t denounce Carl Paladino’s rhetoric because he hadn’t seen or heard it.

“I’ve never seen them, actually, but I understand they’re very offensive…It was hard for me to comment on something I haven’t seen,” he said on a weekly conference call with reporters.

“Certainly, if things like the n-word were used, that’s not appropriate ever,” he said. On NY1 earlier this week, he declined to make as strong a statement. “All I said was, ‘I hadn’t seen them.’ Our campaign doesn’t spend a whole lot of time looking at the e-mails of Mr. Paladino, so I hadn’t seen them, but I understand they’re very offensive.”

Donovan has cited the ethical code of the District Attorneys Association of the State of New York in declining to endorse Carl Paladino, his party’s standard bearer for governor.“I am running and campaigning on ethics reform. I am not going to violate any ethical guideline…we have strict guidelines that prevent us from endorsing a candidate, and nobody’s asked me,” Donovan said. Responding to a hit by Sen. Eric Schneiderman’s campaign, noting Donovan lauded now-disgraced ex-NYPD Commissioner Bernie Kerik when he was nominated as Homeland Security secretary, Donovan said that wasn’t an endorsement.

“Bernie Kerik was somebody who I didn’t endorse. I never spoke to the president, never wrote a letter on his behalf. When I was asked if I thought he would be a good homeland security director, my experience with him as police commissioner led me to believe he would be,” he said.